Hollywood Mega Star Kevin Costner is the star of a new movie with some very serious thematic material. “Black or White” is a movie about family but it is also a movie that deals with race and racism. In this latest film, Costner plays a grandfather raising his biracial granddaughter and fighting for custody over her with the other side of her family. While many see race as it’s central theme Costner says that’s a small part of it… it’s really more about love and family.

What is most interesting to me is Costner’s willingness to stand up to the race-baiters who try and shut down conversations on race that involve white people. White’s must have a place in the dialogue if our nation (and the world) are to move forward and away from our old racist ideas.

In a recent interview CNN’s Don Lemon brought up a recent Costner quote about how anytime someone wants to shut down a conversation they simply have to play the race card – to which Costner responded…

Well, it is not the only way that you do it, but when you want to shut a conversation down you can also walk away. Whatever happened in Ferguson today. Somebody either walked away — it breaks down. I think the beauty of a movie is that a lot of people can watch it and see it for two hours, they can see things that maybe they’ve said in their life or maybe things they wish they had said in their life, and they’re not going to be able to walk away. They’re going to go sit there in that movie, and say, who am I? Am I that person? I know Octavia [Spencer] and Anthony Mackie personally. Both felt that they could say things that they wanted to say their whole lives, not only for themselves, but for their generation.

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About the author

Onan Coca

Onan is the Editor-in-Chief at Liberty Alliance media group. He's also the managing editor at Eaglerising.com, Constitution.com and the managing partner at iPatriot.com. You can read more of his writing at Eagle Rising.
Onan is a graduate of Liberty University (2003) and earned his M.Ed. at Western Governors University in 2012. Onan lives in Atlanta with his wife and their three wonderful children.